Monday, September 21, 2015

Well, as we all know, I love Pinterest. It's fun! One of my favorite things to look at on Pinterest are delicious cakes, cookies, and desserts. On this post I'm sharing some awesome "novelty" dessert recipes that'll make you run for the kitchen. All links are in the photo captions.

Is this not just adorable??? A mouse cake!!! And, it actually doesn't look that hard to make! It can be found at Handmade Charlotte.

Also from Handmade Charlotte, this DIY Melted Snowman Cake is just adorable! And I know it's not winter, but hey...

How great are these for Game Day, huh? And they're so cute! Thank you, Created by Diane!

Ok, theses are just absolutely adorable! I seriously NEED to just... try... this. Except I'm not that good at making cupcakes. But I am good at eating them (awkwardly flips hair *aw, stop, it's a special talent of mine*). Check out the recipe at Oh Joy.

One day when I was on pinterest (a decidedly not-uncommon occurrence for me), I found a recipe I would actually try- Homemade Reese's Peanut Butter Bars! When I tried the recipe, I was blown away, and made it again, and soon I think I'll make it again! The recipe, from iheartnaptime.net, can be found here, or you can read it below. For pictures and to print the recipe, click the link. I'm super excited to share this recipe, I love it and I bet you will too!

Mini-Confession: I have a mental block. I always spell recipe like recipie! And I always spell excited like exited!!! What's the deal, huh?

Ingredients:

1 cup salted butter (melted)

2 cups Keebler graham cracker crumbs (they sell them crushed or you can crush them yourself)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 3/4 cup powdered sugar

1 cup peanut butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 11 oz. bag milk chocolate chips

Directions:

Combine all ingredients, except chocolate chips, in a medium sized bowl. Stir until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

Pour peanut butter mixture into a 13-9 pan.

Melt chocolate chips in the microwave for 1-2 minutes. Stir chocolate and pour over the peanut butter mixture. Spread chocolate with spatula. To even out chocolate, tap pan on counter. (Note to Self: So... I guess I shouldn't make this while Dad is napping?)

Refrigerate bars for 1 hr. Cut while bars are still cool.

There you have it! The only things I would change about directions are that a.) You can leave the bars in the fridge for over an hour if need be, and b.) The bars can be kind of hard to cut right when they get out of the fridge. Give it maybe 5 minutes for them to thaw, and then cut.

The bars, in my experience, can be kept in the fridge for quite a while.

I hope you enjoy these delicious Reese's Peanut Butter Bars. Let me know what you think in the comments!

I like to read. So I read a lot, even if what I'm reading doesn't apply to me. So, when I was sick this weekend (now I'm recovering, should be at school tomorrow), I read this old parenting book from the 80s-90s called "Siblings Without Rivalry." And, as not the parent but the parent-ee, I realized that while the book did have some definitely good suggestions about helping kids when the fight, I realized that while a tip the book mentions did work in some cases, I didn't think I would, as the fighting sibling, respond to it well.

The tip was about how to respond when kids complain to you about the others. You should basically just repeat what they said to you and describe how they feel. "Brothers and sisters need to have their feelings about each other acknowledged with words that identify the feeling, with wishes, or with symbolic or creative activity," the book says on page 30.

I think this idea works great- in some scenarios. And I feel it works best with younger kids, for example:

Kid (3): Mom, Kaitlyn hit me.
Mom: Jacob, I bet you wish Kaitlyn would tell you what she wants instead of hit you. And Kaitlyn, you need to express your anger with words, not punches.

This is a situation when the technique works fine. But this is one where I feel like I'd just stay mad.

Kid (13): Maggie took all the cookies out of my lunch, and now there's no more cookies left.
Mom: You wish she'd leave some for you next time. You must be angry.

If I were the kid, I would think, yes, I am angry, but telling me that doesn't get me my cookies back. Maggie's a horrible sister!

So, you see, overall this is a great, helpful book. But like anything, there are things that can be adapted to fit your family. What do you think? Is this technique good or bad, or both?

This summer, me and my family went to Port Aransas, an island near Corpus Christi, Texas. We have been going to Port A nearly every summer for a while now, so I thought I might share my best pictures from that trip for this Inspiration Monday.

Sunday, September 20, 2015

What do you call your grandparents? Grandma and Grandpa are of course some of the most popular names, but I thought I'd share the story of my family's quite...unusual grandparent names.

Ibi
We call one of my grandmothers Ibi. Well, at first we called her Abuelita, the Spanish word for granny, but then my younger sister couldn't pronounce Abuelita, so she began calling her Ibi. It stuck, and now, six years later, we call her Ibi. It's weird, but it works.

Buelo

Just like we used to call Ibi Abuelita, we used to call Buelo Abuelo, the Spanish word for grandfather. But when my brothers we born, neither of them could pronounce Abuelo, so the name morphed into Buelo. I guess it's kind of a shortened version of the original name.

Nano
Finally, a normal grandma name. Well, I guess it's not the most popular name, but we like it. This is the only one of our grandparent's names that have stayed the same! When my cousin Quinn (the first grandchild) was born, Nano chose her name. Quinn, apparently, had way better pronunciation skills than my brothers, because the name Nano actually stuck (it's a miracle)!

Bump

This is my favorite name we've come up with. We began calling our grandpa "Gramps." This actually lasted a long time, until my sister was probably two or three. While at our house, Gramps bumped his head on a tree in our front yard. My sister began calling him "Bump," and the name just stuck. The funny thing is, I don't really think Bump minds. the name is kind of goofy, like him, and it's pretty cool.

What do you call your grandparents, or what do your kids call your parents? Let me know in the comments!

Saturday, September 19, 2015

I've been sick since Thursday and I've watched about 10 episodes of The Middle (my favorite show EVER!) amd 5 episodes of The Goldbergs, as well as an episode of Cutthroat Kitchen, and watched Mean Girls. And I'm bored. And dosed up on disgusting grape-flavored Tylenol (ewwwwwww!)

But you know what, at least I'm not dying. But however, I thought I'd share some tips for what to do when you're sick, because the Tylenol is doing it's job.

Watch TV and don't feel bad. Binge-watch Netflix and watch some of those Amazon Prime movies you've been meaning to sit down to see. But you know what? Since you're sick, you can get away with it. And since you can't go out to the gym or run errands, kick back and relax, guilt-free! 😂👍

Sleep... Cause you can and there's no one to stop ya. And if you're like me and you don't like to nap, wait to try until you're feverish and tired. Crawl under those covers and it will be much easier to get some rest in when waiting for your fever to break.

Do some much needed online shopping. Like for that birthday present for your dad. Or do some unneeded shopping while resting. Hey, is that backpack for sale??? And those boots really are cute.... 👢👠👗

Let your imagination wander... If you're feeling bad, lie down, zone out, and think about whatever comes to mind. These days people are far too stressed and overbooked, it might be nice to lie back and think about...absolutely nothing.

Read a book. I've been rereading the Little Hose in the Prarie series, and it's been good. The last time I read them I was like eight, so read something you haven't read in a while and you'll look at it in a whole new way!

Finally, go to bed early, wake up late, catch up on sleep, and hopefully you'll be feeling better in no time! At least, that's the hope.

One last thing. I've mentioned some of my favorite TV shows, so here's the info for those. Both are definitely worth watching and the Middle is as funny for kids as it is for adults!

The Middle season premiere: September 23, 2015! Sue goes to college!

The Goldbergs season premiere: also September 23! Right after the middle, how convenient!

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Hi everyone! Today is the third and final part of my inspiration series on making your drill team cowbells! On our team, the Golden Sparks, we have been making cowbells for our little sisters, and just yesterday we set out their bells for them to find in honor of the first football game.

Monday, September 14, 2015

On our dance team, we are making cowbells for our little sisters. My cowbells were made using supplies from Hobby Lobby and Michaels. Here are my cowbells, and the supplies I used to make them. I have also included pics of the cowbells my friends made for extra inspiration, as well.

Here, I started with a blank silver cowbell.

And a blank gold cowbell.

I started with the supplies above, plus a few more ribbons, but still.

So, today I'm beginning a new thing called Inspiration Monday (oh, if only a weekday started with i!) On Inspiration Monday, I'll be sharing photo inspiration. All the photos will be taken by me, usually, but in any case they are all ametur photos. I hope you all enjoy the inspiration.

This week's pics are nature photos I have taken myself, in my yard. I hope it will demonstrate that you don't need tons of experience, or an exotic location, or even to devote lots of time to getting beautiful photos. These photos were shot on my Canon EOS Rebel T5, with an 18-55mm kit lens. Enjoy!

I hope that provided a nice dose of inspiration, or at least something nice to look at! Have a great week!